


Note from the Inquisitorial Archives #5

by professorplum221



Series: Notes from the Inquisitorial Archives [5]
Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: F/F, F/M, Light Bondage, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, Open Relationships, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:59:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professorplum221/pseuds/professorplum221
Summary: When Ciaphas Cain runs into an old friend, Amberley Vail becomes determined to find out the details of their past together
Relationships: Amberley Vail/Felicia Tayber, Ciaphas Cain/Amberley Vail, Ciaphas Cain/Amberley Vail/Felicia Tayber, Ciaphas Cain/Felicia Tayber
Series: Notes from the Inquisitorial Archives [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043088
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still only partway through reading the Ciaphas Cain series, and I wrote the majority of this when I only knew Felicia Tayber from book four. Then I reached book six while working on it and realized that a bit of what I came up with doesn't really fit into the way her story ends up going in canon. Oh well! Enjoy anyway.

_ Archival note: The following documents, arranged in order to tell a sequential narrative, consist of two excerpts from as-yet-unpublished sections of Commissar Cain's memoirs, with another document that appears to have been written by Inquisitor Vail in the middle. Whether the two of them penned their separate perspectives on the same events together, one in response to the other, or simply coincidentally at separate times is unclear. As is typical of the writing of Commissar Cain's that escapes Inquisitor Vail's annotations, any context that would place this story at a specific point in time appears to be missing; evidently, from the opening line, because the commissar simply did not care to provide it. _

_ \- Underscribe P. Plumb, 137.M42 _

The specifics of the events that led to my unexpected reunion with Felicia Tayber—almost two decades after we said our hurried goodbyes on Perlia—are hardly worth remarking upon. In brief, the Valhallan 597th had participated in a minor skirmish against a relatively small genestealer infestation, and as per usual, my penchant for stumbling into harm's way and subsequently fighting like hell to get out of it had bolstered the common troopers' false impressions of my alleged heroism. One thing that was slightly out of the ordinary on this particular occasion was that Amberley, who had been present on the planet to investigate the 'stealers since before the Guard arrived, had also been able to lend me some assistance in battle, with the benefit of that extremely useful power armour of hers. As a result, the two of us shortly found ourselves the unwitting guests of honour at a hastily prepared military banquet, where some general or other continually insisted on informing anyone who would listen that they ostensibly owed their lives to the efforts of Commissar Cain and Inquisitor Vail. Needless to say, neither of us was particularly pleased with this turn of events—me because of my general discomfort with accepting accolades I've truthfully done nothing to deserve, and her because any chance of cover she had within any of the Guard regiments involved was now completely blown.

But with no way to get out of it, I was standing with a drink in hand in the crowded banquet hall, reluctantly accepting the misaimed thanks of various effusive strangers—not to mention doing my best to remain an appropriate distance away from Amberley and avoid letting my gaze linger for too long on her tight-fitting evening gown—when I was approached by a somewhat unconventional figure in a white robe. My first thought, of course, was that this must be one of the enginseers from the tank unit that had provided support to the 597th in the earlier battle. My second thought, following rapidly on the heels of the first, was that she was quite pretty for an enginseer—and my third was the dawning realization that I had met this pretty enginseer before.

"Hello, Commissar," she greeted me with a familiar smile.

"Felicia Tayber!" I hoped my expression hadn't betrayed my momentary failure to recognize her—something which I blame in equal parts on the intervening years and the freely flowing amasec at the banquet. "How are you?"

"Well enough," she responded. "And the way I hear it, I owe you my life again. Funny how that keeps happening, isn't it?"

"On the contrary, Felicia, I believe that all of us who survived the siege of Perlia owe our lives to you." It was the sort of thing I was used to saying in order to put on a show of modesty, but in this case, it was also true.

"We'll call it even, then."

"How's . . . your . . . brother?" I fumbled for something to say and fortunately managed to land on a decently civil subject. "Still with the PDF on Perlia?"

"He's doing well, last I heard," she replied. "They had a lot of work to do for a while after the siege, making up for losses and all that, but they've pretty well recovered now. And I decided to do some traveling rather than stick around all my life, so I ended up with the Guard."

I nodded feebly as whatever remaining energy I had left for social interaction seemed to get sucked out of my body. The prospect of spending even another second trying to find a way to express—or more realistically, hide—the multitude of complex emotions that had been flooding my mind ever since I first recognized Felicia Tayber struck me as completely unbearable, and I began looking around for some plausible reason to leave. 

"Excuse me, I just have to . . ." I gestured vaguely at the reveling crowd around me, hoping in vain that an end to that sentence might arrive at any moment.

"Make the rounds? Greet more of your fans?" she helpfully suggested, perhaps not entirely seriously.

"Something like that, yes," I replied anyway. "Nice to . . . have a good night."

With one final brisk nod, I began the strenuous task of making my way toward the exit. I may have rudely ignored at least one other guest trying to get my attention as I did so, but I reasoned at the time that they were probably better off finding someone much more capable of conversation to talk to.

Upon finally reaching the freedom of the outdoors, I paused for a moment to breathe in the cool night air, appreciating how uncommonly pleasant it was to be on a planet with tolerable weather for once. Under normal circumstances, I would have summoned Jurgen to drive me to my temporary lodgings, but as I was staying somewhere not far from the banquet hall at the time, it seemed a pleasant idea to simply walk there. But just as I was about to depart, the sudden appearance of yet another equally beautiful and intimidating woman put an immediate halt to any ideas I had about taking some time alone to clear my head.

"Leaving me behind, are you?" Amberley asked.

"Only strategically," I said, with a glance to either side to check for potential eavesdroppers. "People will talk about the two guests of honour disappearing together."

She scoffed. "If you don't want people to talk about us, you might try to refrain from spending so much time undressing me with your eyes whenever we're in a room together. As it is, I'm sure anyone who took one glance at us at that party would be shocked to hear that you  _ didn't _ take me home."

"In that case, I wouldn't want to disappoint them." I offered her my arm, and we fell into step together. The streets of the city were well lit, but sparsely populated at this hour, most of the rest of the population likely either in bed or still enjoying the event that I had been so desperate to get away from.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Amberley asked as we stepped onto the cobblestones of the almost empty town square.

"Nothing's wrong; I'm just tired."

"You know I can tell when you're lying, Ciaphas. I wouldn't be much good at my job if I wasn't."

She was right, of course. And as much as I sometimes wished it was easier to conceal some of my more distasteful thoughts from her, I wouldn't have expected anything less.

I sighed. "Felicia Tayber was there."

Amberley grasped my arm in apparent excitement. "She  _ was _ ? Your long lost love from Perlia? Was  _ that _ who you were just talking to while I was putting up with small talk from that tiresome general?"

"She's not my 'long lost love,' but otherwise, yes."

"What did she say to you that upset you so much?"

"Nothing in particular, it's just . . ."

Not for the first time that evening, I took a moment to search for the right words. I found them when I turned my head to meet Amberley's eyes.

"Wouldn't you find it disconcerting to suddenly run into someone from your past like that? Someone who knew you when you were practically a different person—at least on the outside? Every time I looked at her, a part of me kept saying, 'she knows  _ too much _ .' And I wasn't sure what else to do about it except leave."

Amberley nodded thoughtfully. "In my line of work, when I encounter someone who 'knows too much,' I usually kill them."

I smiled. "Not the most viable course of action under these particular circumstances, but thank you for your input, Inquisitor."

"So you took one glance at her and immediately ran off, did you?"

"No, of course not, I . . ." As soon as I had begun to protest, it occurred to me how close that summary really was to accuracy. "Well, I spoke to her, and asked how she was, and . . . something about her brother . . . and then I pretty well just frakked off I suppose, yes."

I couldn't help but start laughing at the absurdity of my own actions. A man of my age, not to mention a celebrated veteran of Emperor knows how many arduous battles, terrified to have a conversation with a pretty woman. Amberley was just as amused as I was, and we were both still recovering from occasional fits of giggles by the time our walk brought us to the entrance of my lodgings.

"You should take the chance to talk to her again, while you're still on the same planet," she advised as she stepped through the door ahead of me. "You know you'll regret it if you don't."

"You might be right," I agreed, following her in, "but the problem is, I still have absolutely no clue what to say."

"Maybe I could help."

"I certainly don't doubt that you have some ideas. What I'm less sure about is how likely any ideas of yours are to benefit me whatsoever."

"You know they do  _ sometimes _ , at least. Unzip this for me, will you?" Amberley turned her back to me and lifted her hair out of the way of her dress. I bent down to oblige, simultaneously taking the opportunity to press my lips to the back of her exposed neck. She let the dress fall to the ground, turned to face me, and commenced generally improving the mood of the evening.

A few minutes later—by which point she had me pinned against the wall and partially undressed—she pulled back with a mischievous expression on her face. 

"Now, you're not still thinking about Felicia Tayber, are you?"

I raised an eyebrow. "And what would you do if I was?"

"Oh, I have some ideas."


	2. Chapter 2

_ Archival note: As stated earlier, Commissar Cain's narrative is here supplemented by a separate document providing the perspective of Inquisitor Vail. _

After that night, I simply had to speak with Felicia Tayber myself, if only to satiate some general curiosity about whether my impression of her would at all align with what I had heard. In my experience, Commissar Cain's view of events as they affected him personally tended to differ greatly from the accounts of others, and if this woman he found so intimidating had turned out to appear the opposite in my regard, it wouldn't have been the first time. I was often glad of such opportunities to gain a deeper perspective of those major events of his life that I hadn't been there to witness—both in order to understand the man that I seemed to be shaping up to spend a great deal of my life with, as well as to begin to conceptualize where he fit in among all the other major players in the recent history of the Imperium. I had an inkling even then that I might end up writing or editing something of this nature, so any relevant knowledge I could collect was useful to me. Those were my main motivations when I went looking for her the next morning, at any rate. As for the events that followed, while the possibility was certainly not yet at the forefront of my mind, I will admit that I had spared the idea some thought.

I found the enginseer in a large and somewhat scattered workshop, apparently making some repairs to the underside of a Leman Russ that looked like it had seen better days. Positioned as she was beneath it, all I saw of her at first was the bottom half of a flowing white robe, with the worn-out soles of a pair of steel-toed work boots peeking out the end of it.

"Felicia Tayber?" I asked, not quite sure where to direct my gaze in the absence of a visible face.

"That's me," a muffled voice responded. With a rumble of rolling wheels from the platform beneath her, she emerged out in the open flat on her back, and I found myself looking down at a slightly grease-smudged face bearing a winning smile. She pushed a pair of goggles up to her forehead with a gloved hand before addressing me again. "How can I help you?"

Of course, she was blonde. I knew his type well enough by this point that I could have guessed.

For obvious reasons, it's quite rare for me to immediately reveal my real name and occupation at the outset of a conversation with a stranger. But considering that my presence had unfortunately already been revealed to her entire regiment—not to mention the fact that I might soon want to discuss a mutual friend of ours—I decided to approach her with a bit more openness than usual.

"Inquisitor Amberley Vail," I introduced myself. "I just wanted—"

"Inquisitor?" she repeated, her eyebrows raised. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Not to my knowledge, no." I couldn't hold back a bit of a smirk. "Why? Have you done anything I should know about?"

"Well, if you don't know already, I'm definitely not going to tell you," she responded with a theatrical wink.

I was surprised to find someone so immediately willing to respond in kind to my light teasing. Upon first being appraised of my title, most people are so terrified that they would immediately confess to all manner of sordid crimes, including those entirely outside of my jurisdiction. But here was a humble enginseer in tattered boots, practically lying on the floor in front of me and still talking to me like an equal. It was almost absurd—and it was also very refreshing. I was already beginning to see what he liked so much about her.

"No, I'm not here on official business at all," I continued. "I really just wanted to say hello. I . . . understand you're acquainted with a colleague of mine—Commissar Cain?"

"Oh, yes. I was, anyway. Knew him before he was famous, really." For a moment, her expression grew somewhat wistful. "But I'm afraid I don't have much time to reminisce about old times right now. One of the other enginseers is down in the medicae with a head wound, so I've got twice the work to do today."

"Perhaps I could help somehow?" I offered. "I have a few associates in the Mechanicus, so I've picked up a bit of general knowledge about repairs."

"Well, you  _ could _ hand me the wrench from the shelf up there, if you don't mind."

She gestured to the wall behind me. I spotted the tool she was looking for, but involuntarily winced in pain when I reached above my head in an attempt to grab it.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine; I just have stiff shoulders," I responded, rubbing the offending one with the other hand. "It tends to come with the job."

"I can take a look at that for you."

With the aid of a hand on the floor, Felicia raised herself to her feet, and we saw eye-to-eye for the first time. Or something like it, anyway—she had a bit of an advantage in height. A thin mechadendrite emerged from one of the folds of her robe, and she used it to carefully remove her gloves, presumably to avoid getting any grease on her hands in the process.

"Am I allowed to touch an inquisitor, or is there some archaic rule about that?" she asked.

"I can't speak for any other inquisitors you might encounter," I said, "but under the circumstances, I'll allow it."

I was still unsure about how to react to this unexpected development, but I was curious to see what she might do—and if she could actually provide some relief from a rather irritating physical ailment, all the better. She approached me and pressed a finger against my shoulder carefully a few times before stepping back again and lifting her arms up in front of her chest in some kind of demonstration.

"Can you do this? Stand up straight with your shoulders back, and tilt your head a bit like this."

I followed her instructions, letting some air out through gritted teeth as I did.

"Try to hold it for ten seconds. If you do it a few times a day, it should help. And avoid hunching your shoulders too far forward, especially if you're carrying anything. That's probably what caused the problem."

As unpleasant as the resulting physical sensation was, I couldn't deny that it felt like the type of pain that comes from proper exercise rather than from injury, as I'd had quite enough experience with both to be able to tell the difference. She seemed like she really did know what she was talking about.

"I'm surprised you're this knowledgeable about physiology," I told her after letting my arm fall back down to my side. "Isn't muscle strain one of those 'weaknesses of the flesh' that your kind are in favour of entirely eradicating?"

"You're right about that," she responded, "but as you can see, not all of us go for immediately replacing it all wholesale."

It was difficult to tell with the way she was dressed, but from what I could see, her body did indeed appear to be mostly natural—barring a few relatively minor augmetics like the mechadendrite. Although I couldn't help wondering about what else might be concealed beneath her robe. 

"One of the tech-priests who trained me once told me that no matter what your body is made of, you need to put effort into maintaining it—the same way you do with these vehicles here." She knocked her hand against the tank beside her for emphasis, filling the room with a hollow, metallic sound. "So I've always kept that in mind, and I've ended up learning a lot about how various kinds of bodies work over the years."

"I  _ bet _ you have." I intended that retort as a joke, but judging by the frustrated sigh with which she reacted, it came out sounding a little bit more accusatory than it was meant to.

"Look, if you're implying something about Ciaphas," she snapped, "I don't know what he told you, but it was a long time ago and I've had plenty of time to get over it. I'm not a threat, if that's what you're worried about."

As the reality of the situation dawned on me, I couldn't help but laugh. Clearly—just as I suspected some people might—she had surmised some of the nature of my personal relationship with Commissar Cain, and had attached to that a generous side helping of presumptions. I wondered if, from the moment that I walked into her workshop, she had imagined that I saw the two of us as being in some kind of conflict, and approached the conversation accordingly. How many of her moves had been calculated to express some subtle antagonism, or simply to throw me off guard, when all along I had chalked up her unconventional behaviour to typical enginseer eccentricity? Was there even any truth to her story about her injured comrade in the medicae? No—from the way she immediately dropped the allegedly urgent repair work as soon as a more interesting option presented itself, I should have doubted it earlier. It was probably just an excuse to demonstrate a lack of concern for my authority, and I played right into her hands. Not to mention that her apparent surprise at receiving a visit from an inquisitor had obviously been an act, now that I realized that she clearly knew exactly who I was. I was genuinely impressed with her natural talent for social manipulation.

"Oh, goodness, no," I corrected her. "Ciaphas and I don't have the kind of relationship where I would consider another woman a  _ threat _ ."

Felicia's eyebrows furrowed. "You're not a couple, then? I just assumed—"

"You assumed correctly. But our careers mean we have to spend a lot of time apart, and I wouldn't expect him to just wait around for me all the time."

I watched her surprised reaction with some amusement.

"You mean you also see other people?" she asked.

"Sometimes. And sometimes he tells me about someone else he met while I was gone, and other times he doesn't tell me, and I don't ask. He extends the same courtesy to me."

"And that works for the two of you? You never get jealous?"

I shrugged. "I wouldn't say  _ never _ . But not so much that it's a major issue, no. We're both quite happy with this arrangement, most of the time."

"Well, congratulations. So you're really not scoping out your competition then?"

"Not as such. But I  _ was _ curious about you. He's mentioned you enough to intrigue me, but then he always manages to change the subject. He doesn't really like to talk about what happened on Perlia."

"Thought you said you didn't ask."

"I don't ask  _ him _ . And I haven't asked you anything either, have I?"

"Not directly."

"No. Not yet, I haven't." I smiled, and she did too, this last exchange appearing to return some sense of equilibrium to the proceedings.

"If you really want to know what happened between us," she began with a gesture of surrender, "the answer is not very much."

"Really?" I replied, somewhat incredulous. "But you must have spent weeks—even  _ months _ together on Perlia."

"Months spent mostly trudging through the desert fearing for our lives, not to mention constantly surrounded by other people," she retorted, and I thought I detected a hint of resurfacing frustration in her voice. "There was  _ one _ night that we almost . . ."

I leaned in and nodded, hoping to encourage her to continue. After a few moments of silence, she did.

"We had a bit more shelter and privacy in one of the supply caches along the way, but once we were actually together . . . I could tell he was completely exhausted. His heart wasn't in it—he was just trying to go through the motions so as not to disappoint me, when all he really needed was sleep. The minute I told him it was alright, he practically passed out on my shoulder."

I felt a wide smile spreading across my face. "That's adorable."

Felicia blushed. "It was, a bit. The funny thing is, I don't have to sleep very much myself—brain augments take care of that. I spent the rest of the night trying to get as much organizational work done as possible with one arm, so as not to wake him."

"And you never had another opportunity?"

"Never. There were a lot of bigger concerns to deal with soon after that, and things just didn't work out between us." She sighed and shook her head. "You must really be a good inquisitor, to get me talking about all that."

I  _ am _ a good inquisitor, but in this case, I credit most of my success to her own desire to talk to me—although I didn't say that to her.

Instead, I fixed my gaze on hers and asked, "Well how often does a second chance like this one come around?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we've come to the source of my initial inspiration to write this! I thought it was really interesting that from what Amberley implies in her footnotes in book four, she clearly thinks that Cain and Felicia were sleeping together on Perlia, but Cain's narration never actually confirms it. He's obviously attracted to her, but earlier in the same book he's way more direct about a couple other women he had brief relationships with, so if there was something going on with Felicia too, why doesn't he just say so? Is this an instance where Amberley is actually just reading too much into it? Thinking about that gave me the idea for how this all plays out. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

_ Archival note: With the conclusion of Inquisitor Vail's supplement to the narrative, we now return to an unpublished excerpt from the memoirs of Commissar Cain. _

Looking up from my desk to see Amberley marching into my office with Felicia Tayber in tow was quite the surprise, but to my credit, I managed to recover and respond almost immediately in what I thought would be an appropriate manner. Not quite sure of what was going on, I erred on the side of formality, attempting a calm and level tone of voice.

"Ah, Inquisitor Vail and Enginseer Tayber. How can I help you?"

"Don't worry," Amberley replied with a coquettish shake of her head. "She knows."

Not a particularly reassuring sentence in its own right—but she soon clarified her meaning by leaning across my desk to kiss me, while Felicia closed and locked the door behind her. My eyebrows shot up as I considered the strange situation and contemplated how to react.

"Since you wanted to talk to her, I thought I'd bring her to you. I knew you weren't going to do it yourself," Amberley continued. By this point, Felicia had moved to join her, and both of them were staring down at me in a faintly intimidating manner from across my desk.

"Ah, well, yes," I stuttered. "Felicia, I—I meant to apologize for leaving so abruptly last night. I meant no slight against you in the least. I was really very happy to see you again, and . . . well. That's about the measure of it. I'm . . . glad to see you're doing well."

Felicia smiled. "Likewise. Thank you."

"You know," Amberley leaned down toward me as she began, in a posture no doubt designed to emphasize some of her best physical features, "Felicia was just telling me the most interesting story about you."

"Ah. Was she." I attempted to maintain a neutral expression, but my heart sank when I considered the question of which unflattering tale from my past she might be referring to.

Amberley smiled, likely enjoying the chance to make me a bit nervous. "Well, we don't have to get into all the details of it now. The important part is, I understand you rather missed your opportunity with her once."

Oh, I realized. She had told her  _ that _ story. The two of them had certainly managed to become quite close over the course of a morning's conversation.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." I ventured a glance at Felicia and was somewhat comforted to find that she appeared to be blushing; I wasn't the only one slightly disadvantaged by Amberley's characteristic candor.

"So Felicia and I were wondering if you might like a second chance."

My mouth fell open as my realization of the purpose for this unexpected visit smacked me in the face, and several disjointed and practically incomprehensible words fell out of it. "A second—well—well yes, I'd be—as long as Felicia . . . ?"

I turned my head to see Felicia already approaching me around the side of my desk, her still somewhat crimson-hued face now also adorned with a smile. "It's why I'm here."

"Well—then—"

She slid an arm around my shoulders and descended onto my lap, helpfully cutting off my aimless fumbling for words with a kiss.

Even after all those years, not to mention the brief and truncated nature of our earlier relationship, I still felt some sense of familiarity and comfort in her lips. Holding her in my arms again felt like a momentary reunion with a younger version of myself—one who was a great deal more foolish, perhaps, but also one who carried much less weight on his shoulders. I felt like I could regain a bit of a lost zest for life with her.

"I did miss you, you know," she sighed into my ear, "after you left. I thought about you a lot back then."

"I missed you too," I murmured into her neck. I began feeling around the contours of her body, searching for a way to slip a hand beneath the robe she was wearing. Its seemingly endless folds rather confounded my efforts, but I nevertheless managed to make indirect contact with one or two particularly sensitive areas, to her apparent enjoyment. I was about to try another approach—possibly suggesting a change of position to facilitate starting from where the robe ended at her ankles—when Amberley interrupted.

"That's enough of that for now," she declared. "Hands behind your back."

I was happy to comply, and the moment I did, the mechadendrite attached to Felicia's back shot out and snaked around my wrists, binding them together. It was such a quick and efficient movement that I wondered whether it was something she did often—or whether perhaps she and Amberley had rehearsed.

Now perched on the corner of my desk just beside me, Amberley grinned. "Oh, I never actually asked you, Felicia—do you like women?"

Felicia chuckled. "Do you think I'd have come here with you if I didn't?"

"Good. Come here, then."

Apparently just as comfortable following Amberley's orders as I was, Felicia stood up and took a step toward her, the mechadendrite evidently long enough that she didn't need to relinquish control over my hands to do so. Amberley drew her in closer and gave me the distinct pleasure of watching their lips meet and begin to explore each other's unique sensitivities and reactions. At one point, Amberley gently reached up to tuck a lock of Felicia's hair behind her ear, and I wondered whether her goal might even be to make sure it wasn't obscuring my view, as dedicated as she appeared to be to putting on a show for my benefit.

She also had much better luck with removing Felicia's robe than I did, soon revealing the place where the instrument of my confinement attached to her lower back—not to mention several other sights that were even more appealing to look at. She cast a brief triumphant glance in my direction as her delicate hands caressed Felicia's sides.

Now, witnessing such a display of affection between two stunningly beautiful women was all well and good at first, but the longer they carried on, the more the experience transformed from enjoyable to torturous, positioned as I was with no way to touch either of them—or, indeed, myself, which I began wishing was possible if only to relieve some of the unbearable tension in my body. This anguishing experience was undoubtedly exactly what Amberley intended for me, and I would have to wait for her to release me on her terms. Of course, I did feel some excitement at that prospect, even as I also felt like I couldn't stand another minute of it—that curious mixture of contrasting sensations being, I suppose, precisely the point of the exercise.

The mercy I had been hoping for eventually came in the form of Amberley shifting away from Felicia's embrace to ask, "Should we let him join in?"

Felicia smiled. "Maybe if he says 'please.'"

Amberley's eyes lit up at the suggestion. "Oh, excellent idea. Ciaphas?"

" _ Please _ ."

I was slightly embarrassed by the desperation that was no doubt evident in my voice, but knowing Amberley, that was the very thing she wanted to hear. She responded—Emperor bless her—by slipping down from the desk and onto her knees in front of me.

"Watch closely, Felicia," she commanded. "I'll show you how he likes it."

* * *

Despite the way the encounter began, I did eventually make it out of my office chair and into a variety of other interesting locations. By the time we called it a day, I was in fact lying on the floor, still in the process of trying to catch my breath after the two of them had quite worn me out. Felicia, on the other hand, was on her feet and dressed in a flash—maybe something to do with those brain modifications of hers giving her extra energy.

"I should really get going," she said, smoothing down some of the creases in her white robe. "I do still have to finish repairing that tank."

"That wasn't all an act, then?" Amberley asked, once again seated on top of my desk.

"Not entirely." Felicia smiled. "Will I see the two of you again anytime soon?"

"How about dinner tomorrow if we're all still around?" Amberley suggested.

"Perfect. You know where to find me." Felicia planted a kiss on Amberley's cheek and gave me a cheery wave as I slowly made my way to my feet before she slipped out the door.

I began to sort through my discarded clothes with a sigh. "How is it, Amberley, that you continually discover new and inventive ways to meddle in my affairs, and yet at the same time always manage to make me thank you for it?"

"A set of specialized skills that I've honed to perfection over my many years in the Holy Emperor's service," she replied with a grin. "That, and I'm very attractive and glamorous."

"I think it might be a bit more like extreme nosiness and luck, combined of course with the fact that you are indeed very attractive and glamorous." Halfway through buttoning up my shirt, I leaned in to kiss her, and she placed my hat on top of my head.

I fastened the remaining buttons and completed the ensemble with the addition of my slightly crumpled greatcoat. "How do I look? Presentable?"

"Oh, quite. Devilishly handsome, in fact. I've half a mind to tear it all off again."

I laughed as I took a seat at the desk once more. "Get out of my office and let me work for once, you insatiable siren."

She hopped back down onto the floor with a smile. "See you tonight?"

"Of course."

The moment Amberley disappeared into the hallway, I allowed myself a brief and triumphant fist pump in celebration of the lifelong fantasy that had just come true, before returning to some of the endless paperwork that comes with the usually unenviable job of being a commissar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading, and Happy New Year! As always, hit me up at the-unsleeping-bi.tumblr.com if you want to talk about Ciaphas Cain. I'm starting to attempt posting some fanart there too. :)


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